Excess Returns

Jurrien Timmer, Fidelity’s Director of Global Macro, explores the AI spending boom, financing pressures and semiconductor cycles. He examines how rising Treasury yields reshape stock valuations, what 1994 and 2022 reveal about corrections, and why bonds may offer income without reliable protection. Timmer also discusses gold, commodities, diversification, market concentration and rebalancing beyond mega-cap U.S. stocks.

Corey Hoffstein, co-founder of Newfound Research and Return Stacked, and Adam Butler, a systematic-investing strategist and portfolio manager, examine why diversification is so difficult to maintain. They discuss inflation’s threat to stocks and bonds, AI-bubble concerns, managed futures, return stacking, leverage, liquidity, collateral, and the behavioral cost of enduring years of underperformance.

Chris Mayer, investor, author, and compounder specialist, joins Robert Hagstrom, investment manager and author of The Warren Buffett Way. They examine Nvidia and Walmart’s striking valuations, AI’s promise and uncertainty, and why free cash flow matters. They discuss testing investment theses like Sherlock Holmes, staying rational during selloffs, concentrated portfolios, watchlists, buybacks, and what data centers owe the communities powering them.

Mike Hunstad, President of Northern Trust Asset Management and a quantitative investing specialist, explores markets, Fed policy, and AI. He discusses why AI may reshape productivity, how margins could reveal its payoff, and why a market decline could hit consumption. The conversation also covers hidden tech exposure in value funds, factor timing, mega-IPOs, tokenization, and the risks lurking in stocks managers leave out.

Peter Boockvar, Chief Investment Officer at OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners and author of The Boock Report, examines AI’s sprawling investment risks. He explores data-center financing, semiconductor cycles, CoreWeave’s debt, and who bears losses when projects falter. He also discusses a two-speed consumer economy, oil markets, international stocks, healthcare, staples, gold miners, private-credit refinancing, and memorable rock concerts.

Eric Pachman, founder of Data 4 The People, tracks inflation, oil logistics, and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Aahan Menon, a macro researcher, examines fiscal policy and household wealth. Ben Hunt, a market-narrative analyst, explores political power and AI’s partisan fault lines. Brent Kochuba of SpotGamma decodes options flows. They unpack the post-election selloff, fragile AI stocks, data center politics, consumer spending, and rising energy costs.

Mike Green, founder of Tier1 Alpha Asset Management, examines how passive investing and fund flows reshape markets. He explores index-driven demand for giant IPOs, retirement contributions, liquidity gaps, and the surprising links to value, size, and momentum. Green also discusses AI infrastructure, inflation, regulation, the K-shaped economy, and Tier1’s passive-aware portfolios with managed futures.

Aahan Menon, founder of Prometheus Research, and Bob Elliott, Unlimited co-founder and CIO, explore the widening gap between spending and paychecks. They discuss household wealth, persistent inflation, Fed policy, bonds versus stocks, and whether AI can deliver the productivity gains markets expect. They also examine how fading savings and business investment could pressure profits without triggering a 2008-style credit crisis.

Michael Howell, founder and CIO of CrossBorder Capital and author of Capital Wars, explores the global liquidity cycle’s turn toward turbulence. He discusses AI’s late-cycle boost, Wall Street competing with real-world investment for funding, repo markets and collateral, the looming debt-refinancing wall, and why government bonds may regain appeal. He also examines Europe’s fiscal strains, China’s debt burden, and the outlook for gold.

John Davi, founder and CIO of Astoria Investment Management, explores portfolios beyond the Magnificent Seven. He discusses S&P 500 concentration, diversifying SPY and QQQ, inflation-era parallels with the 1970s, and the role of real assets. Davi also examines AI adopters versus infrastructure builders, credit-market warning signs, quality investing, and hedging before drawdowns.